David Miliband claims his brother Ed was in the same position over Iraq as all the other candidates save Diane Abbott. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images The decision to join the US in fighting the Iraq war became the focus today of the most bitter exchanges yet between the two Miliband brothers in their rival campaigns [...]

Citigroup made a bn profit for the first half of this year. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images The US bank Citigroup is to pay a m (£48m) fine for hiding bn of sub-prime mortgage exposure from shareholders during the months leading up to the financial crisis which left it dependent on a vast government bailout to avert [...]

PartyGaming says the deal with Bwin will create a group worth .3bn. Photograph: Graham Turner PartyGaming and its Austrian-based rival Bwin today announced plans for a merger that they say will create the world’s biggest publicly-listed online gambling company. The enlarged group, to be incorporated in Gibraltar and listed on the London Stock Exchange, would [...]

US economists Mark Zandi and Alan Blinder say in a new study that US bailout measures averted a worse financial crisis. Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters To Washington conservatives they were egregious examples of “big government” overreach, but the White House’s economic stimulus and bailout policies have saved 8.5m jobs and averted a further slump of 6.5% [...]